Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

Honoring people who deserve honor is easy. Most of us know people we deeply respect, and showing honor to them flows effortlessly from our hearts. The real challenge comes when we’re asked to honor flawed people, people who don’t live up to our expectations, people who’ve failed to do what they should have done. We ask ourselves, “How can I respect someone who hasn’t earned my respect? How can I love someone who doesn’t love me? How can I admire someone who looks down on me? How can I joyfully give to someone who only takes from me?” Indignation rises up inside us. We rebel at the mere suggestion that we should honor such people. Yet God loves it when we give honor, especially when we honor those who, from our human perspective, no longer deserve it. 

This passage describes the missionary challenge in most of the world today: too many converts, too few pastors and teachers. The good news is people are coming to Christ in record numbers, but the bad news is there aren’t nearly enough trained people to take care of them. It’s as though someone went out into a wheat field and cut the ripe wheat, but then left it lying on the ground to spoil. Wheat needs to be bundled together and put into a barn. Cutting it is just the first step in the harvest.

Peter is under attack. He’s having to defend himself. A sizeable and vocal group within the early church were deeply convinced that faith in Jesus in no way changed their requirement to observe the Law of Moses. They believed the statutes and ordinances in the Torah were meant to be eternal commands and therefore must be kept by anyone who wishes to be saved (Ac 15:1). And they were furious with Peter for two reasons. First of all, he had ritually defiled himself by entering a Gentile home and eating improperly prepared food. But second, and even more importantly, they were dismayed that he had actually baptized these Gentiles, because it meant he believed they were saved. By baptizing them, particularly as an apostle, he had welcomed them into the church. They were to be thought of as brothers and sisters. They were to be included in church gatherings. But in the minds of Peter’s accusers unless these Gentiles kept the ceremonial laws they were still “unclean” (Ac 15:5). By welcoming Cornelius’ household into the church Peter had opened the door for unclean people to sit next to them in a worship service, and if they touched them they, too, would become unclean. So as soon as he arrived in Jerusalem they cornered Peter and scolded him. And Peter’s only defense was to point to the fact that it was God, not he, who had welcomed these “unclean” people into His church. By baptizing them in the Holy Spirit, He proved that in His eyes they were perfectly “clean.” 

While praying on a rooftop in Joppa Peter received an amazing vision. God spoke to him three times in that vision, but afterward he had no idea what He’d been trying to tell him. It had remained a puzzling mystery until the moment he stepped into the home of a Roman soldier. As he stood there looking at their faces and feeling God’s presence in the room, he instantly understood. In fact he finally understood something Jesus tried to teach him years earlier. So this was what He meant when He kept preaching about reaching Gentiles. He’d tried to understand, but it just never made sense before. Now, at last, he could see it, and it was so clear he marveled he hadn’t seen it before. Two days earlier when the messengers arrived at the gate he knew God wanted him to trust these strangers and go with them, so he left Joppa and came to Caesarea, and now here he was, only a short distance away from Herod Agrippa’s palace, in the living room of one of the officers of his palace guard. The sensation he felt at that moment was not unlike the time he stepped out of the boat and walked on water. It was both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. His life could be at risk, and he had to violate his conscience to even be here. After all, Jews weren’t supposed to be in Gentile homes. But here he was…and amazingly, Jesus was here too. And finally, he understood why. 

Since its founding, the United States has been a predominantly Christian culture. Not that everybody was a good Christian, they weren’t, but by and large people did believe that Jesus is the Savior and the Bible is God’s Word. Obeying His Word was another matter. There was a consensus. We generally agreed on what we should or should not be doing. When opinions are polled today it seems there is still a majority who say they believe these things, though more and more qualifiers are being added. Yet in spite of what people may claim to believe, the United States as a culture is progressively rejecting its historical faith. And a growing number of people are becoming hostile to that faith. What may have worked in the past to bring “lost sheep” back to the fold doesn’t work with secular skeptics. With these, old fashioned evangelism often produces mockery or verbal abuse. The question many believers are asking today is, “Has America become hard ground? Are the days of soul winning here drawing to an end?”

I recently met with a pastor and his wife and when the conversation finally moved to the topic on their heart the question they wanted to ask was this: How do you know who you can trust? They had gone through some painful experiences of betrayal, and admitted they had now emotionally withdrawn to protect themselves. They hadn’t seen it coming so they didn’t know what to do differently the next time. They said they had started out by being open and vulnerable with people, assuming the boundaries and matters of conscience which governed their own walk with God were at work in all Christians. There were things they just couldn’t think of doing because their conscience would make them miserable, and on top of that they feared the discipline of the Lord. But then they watched other Christians do those very things apparently without a trace of guilt or remorse. One of them said, “I just couldn’t do that, and if I did I would be miserable. Why can they? They hurt us and lied about us, and then went on as if they were the ones who’d been offended. I don’t understand. Where does Jesus come into this picture?”

There are mysteries that lie hidden for centuries and then God, in His perfect timing, chooses to reveal a deeper level of that truth. Until that revelation is given we must believe as much as He has shown us, and then humbly acknowledge there is still much we don’t know. Those who try to solve these mysteries before God reveals them always get it wrong, and end up leading others astray. The human mind is simply incapable of discerning God’s mysteries on its own. We must wait until He explains them. In fact, His spiritual truths are so deep we will spend a lifetime trying to understand just a portion of what He has shown us.

Here we go again! We just read how an angel told Philip to walk down a particular road and then the Holy Spirit pointed out an Ethiopian official he was to lead to Christ. Now we hear the Lord speak to a disciple named Ananias and tell him to go to a certain address and lay hands on Saul of Tarsus. Both situations are “divine appointments.” In both, Jesus sends His disciple after someone He has targeted. He knows whose heart is ready to receive Him, but He also can see into the future. He can see a person’s obedience and fruitfulness, and some will be more fruitful than others. Some will choose to be apathetic and do little for Him, others will passionately serve Him the rest of their lives. There’s no way a human being can know these things. We cannot see into this realm. We have no idea who these highly fruitful people will be, but God sees the heart and knows the future, and because of this He does pursue some people more aggressively than others. He does so because He knows certain people will bring many others to Him. As illogical as it might have seemed at the time, Saul of Tarsus was one of these. This ravager of the church would become a great apostle, and write half of the books in the New Testament. God knew all that but Ananias didn’t. All he knew was that he had to put his life on the line and knock on that door.

Three days after wanting to kill the disciples of Jesus Christ, Paul is a completely different man. Sure, he has a lot to learn, and almost nobody trusts him yet. When he tries to meet with other believers they suspect he’s just pretending so he can gather names and come back later with the police. But he is different. Totally different. And for the next three decades he will live a life that is completely sold out to Jesus. 

Not every human heart is ready to receive Jesus Christ. Different people are at different places in their spiritual journey. Some aren’t willing to hear the gospel, but others are and God knows where that person is every moment of the day. You and I can’t tell what’s going on inside another person’s heart, especially by merely looking at their outward appearance. But God knows the secret thoughts and longings within each of us. And He knows there are people all over the world, some of whom would really surprise you, who would come to Him today if only someone would tell them the truth in a way they could understand.